Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1887-01-14
Amateur House Painting by Women


THERE'S something very fascinating to
woman in Aouse-painting. [ speak
from experience. In fact, it is danger
ously fascinating. 1 advise-stin from
experience advise any of the roman
tic turn of mind, capable of dreaming
dreams and building castles in the air,
not to paint two red chairs for the front
porch-a deed innocent in itself, but
leading to very important consequences.
just allttle vermilion, painters brush
some oil and turpentine, and your chairs
glow like the geraniums on your lawn.
You leave them to dry, and come back to
find your cat asleep in one of them, while
neighbours poodle lies in the other.
YOU paint them again. This time some
callers arrive. You hear the cheerful,
Its so nice out here Well lust" and
rush out, but not in timei There are
some scenes too tragic for the pen to de-
scribe
However, you paint those chairs again,
and the brilliant idea of drying them on
the roof occurs to you; and you look at
your work with pride. You say to YOUR
self that with small, very small, ex-
penditure of money in pigments, wo-
man of your evident talent in decorative
art would be quite independent of the
professional and exorbitant house paint
er. In Imagination you see your rooms
beautified by your own hand, and admir-
ing crowds of relatives utterinC their
praises. You go secretly out and buy
twenty-five cents worth of burnt amber,
and some oil and turpentine, also box
of white lead, and you humbly begin on
the coal bin in the cellar.
From this, spirit in your brush leads
you onward and upward, with the whisper
of Excelsior" until you reach the roof
and finish with the scuttle door. On the
way you paint floors, doors, stairs, win
dow stills. You do the back fence, and
would do the front of the house but for
the force of popular opinion. You do
the bath tub and all the old picture
frames. You make the step-ladder q
symphony in two colors," and feel tn at
Raphaers effects are as nothing to yours.
You decorate baby's high chair and the
clothes horse, the coal scuttle, the wood
box, the washbench, the ironing board.
You go about in an apron with a bib,
which gradually assumes all colors. Your
little boy is forever running to the paint
ers shop with a bottle for more turpen-
tine. You pay yourself high pliments
which you feel are not offered you by
your husband on account of that feeling
of envy which the best of men will enter
tain for a woman who shows her superior
ity in anything not usually considered
woman's province.
You don't mind how your wrists hurts,
SO that you feel your power. As for
your head let it ache. You live in a state
of exaltation never to be experienced
again while you exist, until you discover
that, for some strange reason, paint ap-
piled to woodwork by woman never
dries, but that it comes off dreadfully on
new overcoats and best silk dresses and
peoples hands. You will find your baby
with red tongue, broken nose and a
black forehead, sucking a brush. You
air away the evil smells until your family
succumb to the influe MA and suddenly it
dawns upon you that you have been tenn
porarily insane. It comes like an ava
lanche, and you fall from your fine &c
stasy of graduation into a slough of
despair. You ask why nobody stopped
you, why you were not locked up
chained, indeed, before you were allowed
to do what you have done! You hope, in
vain, that some one will at least say: at
is not so bad" or every well consider
ing;" but nobody does.
Relatives and connections who call,
either look Mortified and exchange glances
with each other, or ask outright: "What
has happened here?" or "What crank has
been at work on that?" You hear the
mllkman roar in the kitchen, while the
cook replies to his questions: "Twas
the missus, Lord help her" Your house
keeping book contains so many small
items reading, Ten cents for turpen-
tine" that you feel, when you balance the
weeks accounts, as though you had been
specializing in stocks and had lost, and
your one hope is now that you may be
able very shortly to call in a professional
house painter to blot out such vestiges of
the inspired labor of untutored genius as
have not been rubbed off upon the backs
and elbows of your family. And you
never try to paint your house again.
That beautiful dream has departed from
your soul forever. You remain sadder
if not q wiser woman.